Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad

Review

Music can’t be defined. It’s much more than just vocal and instrumental sounds combined or in succession. For some, music is a refuge. For others, it’s a way of healing. For citizens living in Leningrad --- now Saint Petersburg --- during World War II, music was comforting, invigorating and a motivating reminder to endure.

National Book Award Winning-author M.T. Anderson’s SYMPHONY FOR THE CITY OF THE DEADis an informative, gripping and shocking accountof the Siege of Leningrad and the crucial role Dmitri Shostakovich’s “Leningrad Symphony” played in not only strengthening the city’s population, but also the Grand Alliance against the Axis Powers.

Broken up into three parts, SYMPHONY FOR THE CITY OF THE DEADis at once a Dmitri Shostakovich biography, a detailed history of Russia and an unforgettably one-of-a-kind WWII story. Readers are guided from the 1917 Russian Revolution into Joseph Stalin’s rise to power and through the Siege of Leningrad, all while becoming familiar with Shostakovich and his seventh symphony.

"SYMPHONY FOR THE CITY OF THE DEAD is a book that should be read by all. It seizes and educates you with an engrossing and rarely mentioned story of humanity’s strength in the darkest of times."

Anderson’s narrative is strengthened by his thorough research and heap of primary sources. Readers benefit as they truly discover the hardships Leningraders endured and the lengths they went to survive the longest, most destructive and bloodiest military blockade in history. Anderson’s vividness will cause goosebumps and chills as he details the indifference citizens felt walking by the dead in the street, the moral decay brought on by starvation that led some to cannibalism and the mass paranoia brought on by the atrocities of Stalin and his People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs.

The goal of SYMPHONY FOR THE CITY OF THE DEADis to exhibit the power and importance of music, and Anderson allows readers to see that for themselves. He shows it in Shostakovich’s determination to finish his symphony, in the will of the depleted Leningrad orchestra and, most importantly, in the resiliency of the people of Leningrad who held on through unthinkable circumstances.

Although considered to be a young adult novel, SYMPHONY FOR THE CITY OF THE DEAD is a book that should be read by all. It seizes and educates you with an engrossing and rarely mentioned story of humanity’s strength in the darkest of times.